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1. Introduction

This is an independent learning module assessment assignment, to complete my

postgraduate degree as I need one more module of 15 credit hours. So I am writing
this assignment of maximum 4000 word limit on “International Marketing Mix
Strategies of Google Inc”. As Google has become the world’s most popular search
engine and can attribute its success to an innovative marketing plan. It found a good
market niche and followed the path of innovation to market itself as the strong
company that everyone knows today. The company generates revenue by providing
advertisers with the opportunity to deliver measurable, cost-effective online
advertising that is relevant to the information displayed on any given page. This
makes the advertising useful to all of us as well as to the advertiser placing it. Google
operates websites at many international domains, with the most trafficked being
Google.com.

1.1. Aims

The reason to choose this topic is because I want to work on International marketing
strategies to get the idea of international marketing techniques adopted by a top
branded company and I am very interested in to find out the search engine based
companies marketing strategies that how these companies are promoting their brand
internationally and generating profit from their business. Google Inc is one of world's
largest search engines, who provide best web solutions to their customer while
running effective and efficient International marketing strategies. So the discussion on
International marketing strategies of Google Inc is the best combination for me as to
get my aim. It will give me a huge area of discussion which covers the International
marketing strategies of one of a words top branded search engine. As I am critically
researching on their system that will provide me some ideas and flaws in their system
so that I may can generate some recommendation for their business.

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1.2. Objectives

Looking as an advisory point of view following are the objectives of this study;

 Critically analyze the international marketing systems adopted by the

company and gather some relevant background information.
 Find out the international marketing mix that can get the balance right between
the different elements.
 To incidence and regularity of performance of International marketing mix
activities of Google Inc in Third World business contexts.
 To enhance the marketing mix strategies of Google Inc and generate some
recommendation for the better performance of the company.

2. Literature Review

Google the world’s best search engine, they have the world’s largest and most
scalable platform for developing huge web-based applications. It has taken the last 10
years of systems software research out of university labs, and built their own
proprietary, production quality system.

It is interesting to know about the policies and strategies that Google has adopted and
become best web based brand and one of the world’s biggest Search Engine.

Google stands alone in its focus on developing the perfect search engine, understands
exactly what they mean and gives us back exactly what we want. The company is still
working to provide better functions and services. Google developed its own serving
infrastructure and breakthrough PageRank™ technology that changed the way
searches are conducted.

From the beginning, Google is providing the fastest, most accurate results required a
new kind of server setup. Whereas most search engines ran off a handful of large
servers that often slowed under peak loads, Google employed linked PCs to quickly
find each query's answer. The innovation paid off in faster response times, greater

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scalability and lower costs. It's an idea that others have since copied, while Google
has continued to refine its back-end technology to make it even more efficient.

The software behind Google's search technology conducts a series of simultaneous

calculations requiring only a fraction of a second. Traditional search engines rely
heavily on how often a word appears on a web page. Google uses numerous factors
including its patented PageRank™ algorithm to examine the entire link structure of
the web and determine which pages are most important. It then conducts hypertext-
matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being
conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, Google is
able to put the most relevant and reliable results first.

3. Theory and Analysis

Marketing Mix

The International marketing mix plan of Google can be broken down into the seven
P’s of marketing; product, price, promotion, place, packaging, Positing and
People. The Google has unique plans for each one of these areas of International
marketing and used them as an advantage over their competitors. With Google
announcing it’s IPO it will need to keep up even more with competitors, now that
there are stockholders analyzing every penny of the company.

3.1. Products

Product refers to the services that Google provide to their customers. The services
includes; advertising and providing their search technology to solve companies search
problems within their intranet like; Web search, Book Search with full text of books,
Desktop Search and personalize our computer, Earth Explore the world from our
computer, Images Search for images on the web, Maps to view maps and directions,
News - now with archive search from which we can Search thousands of news
stories, etc. Google provide some Communicate, show & share services like; Docs
that create and share our projects online and access them from anywhere, Orkut to

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meet new people and stay in touch with friends, YouTube to watch, upload and share
videos, Talk that is a Internet messenger so we can call friends through our computer,
Blogger to Share our life online with a blog, etc.

Google also sell tangible items along with its service or hybrid offers and also sell
“pure” products like Pack that is a free collection of essential software to make better
computing and Web accelerator to speed up the web.

In the product plan of International marketing mix of Google it categorizes their

products into three classes;

 Advertising solutions
 Business Solutions
 Google Store

Advertising solutions: In this plan they offer Google’s AdWords, which is actually a
text-based ads that are precise to the search on the site of the user and the customers
pay Google every time when internet search users click on their site. So the Google is
helping there customers to set up their site as the volume of visitors to the customer
site’s increases. The example of this plan is; when we tend to search online buying on
Google search engine then on the top and left side of the page there come some kind
of sponsored Links like; Buy online with www.Ask.com ,Groceries Online at Tesco,
Buying Online at Amazon, etc.

Business Solutions: In Business solution plan Google offers a search appliance to

companies, which provide their customers a solution to hardware and the software
problems regarding Google’s search technology and intranet. This plan includes three
models of the Search Appliance: the GB-1001 for departments and mid-sized
companies, the GB-5005 for dedicated high-priority search services such as customer-
facing websites and company-wide intranet applications, and the GB-8008 for
centralized deployments supporting global business units. For example if a client
wants to install intranet connection in their office then Google support team will
install best intranet connection including hardware and software that suits to that
company along with advisory solutions.

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Google Store: In this service plan Google sells tangible items to increase their brand
image such as shirts, notebooks, bags, caps, lava lamps to almost anything that they
can print their company’s name on. Like Google caps, Shirts etc.

3.2. Price

It’s an important tool International marketing, which is the price that a company
charges for the product that can be a door-opener, a word-of-mouth generator, a
publicity-getter, or a loss-leader. It’s far too critical a weapon to leave entirely to the
accountants. It is not only the price of an item, but also to the value offered by the
product.

Thriving organizations, such as Google, take into consideration list price, discounts,
allowance, payment period and credit terms as relevant elements to consider when
setting the price. AdWords plan of Google is set on the amount of advertisement per
day it provides to its consumers. In Google’s case the list price is at five cents per day,
however it can go as high as $50.00 per day. The price difference will depend on the
amount of advertisement per day that the consumers are willing to pay and the amount
of times individuals click to see the ads and how high these ads rank on a search page.

The payment period of Google is based on its relationship with their customers. New
customers located in specific countries need to make their payments with a credit card
or by direct debit payments. As soon as the finance department receives the financial
information and it is approved, the ads begin to run, yet if a customer has a long and
positive relationship with Google its financial department might be able to set a
monthly account. This is based on the credit history of the customer.

The credit terms required by an organization to finalize the product price and
Google’s structure tightly relates payment periods with credit terms, yet each
organizations credit terms vary depending on the type of industry. The old and
reliable customers with having a good financial record enjoy a monthly credit. The
credit limit starts at $50.00 a month and it can increase to more than $500.00 a month.

(The Four P's of Google: Marketing Mix Price, Castelar articles 2005, Source:
http://articles.castelarhost.com/google_four_ps_marketing_mix_price.htm)

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3.3. Promotion

Promotion is a tricky way that helps in the business to communicating with

customers. Successful promotion increases though increased promotional activity is
often a sign of a response to a problem such as competitive activity, it enables an
organization to develop and build up a succession of messages and can be extremely
cost-effective.

( M a r k e t i n g m i x , B y S u n i l o n 1 9 D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 . Source: http://mms-
notes.blogspot.com/2008/12/marketing-mix-4ps.html)

Google mainly focus on search they dislike the idea of more ads that affect search
results. The image of Google is still as a best brand of search engine. The more
credible a brand is, the more widely its reputation will spread. The simple and speedy
loading page of Google search engine made it one of the world’s best-known brands.
It offers a minimal homepage, which loads immediately without annoying
advertisements. Most of the people like Google more because of its simple and direct
approach. As a result of Google’s outstanding results it has compelled its dedicated
users to inform everyone else about their remarkable search engine. So Google’s
growth is proof of the power of viral marketing, without the need for massive
advertising budgets.

The example of this strategy is one of a product Froogle, which is a product search.
Froogle is a separate site from Google. When Froogle was first introduced, Google
did not display an advertisement or a link to Froogle. Rather, they relied on providing
a quality free service and backing it with good public relations. Another example
would be AdSense and AdWords. Google does not even advertise this offer on its
homepage. The displayed advertisements are designated as “sponsored links.” Google
has also partnered with Amazon.com to make available Google’s search technology
and sponsored links on their site.

The offers and ads are shown secretly and we can email the offers and ads to our
friends and family. So it is a way of Google to pass a message of their offers through
one friend to another.

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3.4. Place

Place refers to how an organization will distribute the product or service to the target
consumer. It must be delivered to the end user at the right place and the right time.
The platform of the Google is the internet. The best way to target the consumers on
the Internet is Google. "The rate of the adoption of the Internet in all its forms is
increasing, not decreasing," says Eric Schmidt, Google's C.E.O.

The search results of Google on the web are more accurate then any other search
engine because Google always concentrate on quality rather then quantity. For
example; As of July 2003, Yahoo owned Overture, Alltheweb, AltaVista, and
Inktomi, and finally dumped Google in February 2004. Everything needed to turn
Yahoo into a major search engine and pay-for-inclusion ad agency, at a level that can
compete with Google, is under Yahoo's roof. Early evidence suggests that Yahoo will
shoot themselves in the foot with all of this firepower; their desire to monetize
everything appears to be high on the agenda. Google, on the other hand, has been
selling out only recently, and still shows some "pure search" residue from its early
roots. Because of this reason Microsoft tries to buy Google as a way out but Google is
not for sale.

The language addition which was introduced in April 2000 with eleven languages,
which was expanded as of Aug. 2000 to 24. As of July 2001, Russian was added. In
Nov. 2001, Arabic and Turkish and then in early 2002 Catalan, Croatian, Indonesian,
Serbian, Slovak, and Slovenian joined the group for the following 34 language limit
options. These are available on the Advanced Search page and their Language Tools
page.

Good search engines need many months of practice before they can crawl the web
effectively, and order the results so that searchers perceive them to be relevant.
Google provide 75 percent of the external referrals for most websites which gives
more search results coming out from different search engine including Yahoo and
AOL.

(The Four P's of Google: Marketing Mix Price, Castelar articles 2005. Source:
http://articles.castelarhost.com/google_four_ps_marketing_mix_place.htm)

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3.5. Packaging

The fifth element in the marketing mix is the packaging. Develop the habit of
standing back and looking at every visual element in the packaging of particular
product or service through the eyes of a critical prospect. As we know first impression
is the last impression so physical looks does matters a lot. It includes the physical
appearance of products, Offices, Employees, brochures, correspondence.

The look of the Google’s home page is very simple and clear with no extra
formatting. The reason for providing simplicity in the page is to avoid extra loadings,
which may reduce the downloading speed. All the search pages and software are in a
form that customer can easily understand them and can utilize maximum out of it.

The offices of the Google Inc are ideal places to work. They provide very neat and
clean environment to their employees with almost all the necessities of life. There are
different relaxing rooms and gardens. The entrance and the reception rooms are well
decorated and looking awesome. The middle management uses casual dress as to feel
free in their jobs and there is a proper dressing for lower management and bottom line
staff.

Importantly; in all the products and services which Google Inc offer comes with a
unique Logo, which shows the picture of Google as;

(Source: http://jkontherun.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/google-logo.jpg)

We can see this Logo on each and every product, offices, brochures, buildings, buses
and software which company owns.

Infact the unique idea of packaging plays a very important role in the success of
Google Inc which represents one of the worlds best Logo and brand name.

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3.6. Positioning

The next P is positioning. It is the habit of thinking continually about how the product
or services are positioned in the hearts and minds of the customers. How do people
think and talk about the company? What positioning do the company have in the
market.

Google’s founders often state that the company is not serious about anything but
search. So the focus of the Google is to remain in the top position in the names of
worlds best search engine. Many people say they can’t remember what life was like
without Google and with its continued innovation, there will be many more people
added to that list. When ever I want to search any thing on internet I always prefer
Google, which is also set as my home page. This reflects the popularity of Google that
the most of the customers are using Google as their default page.

The Google is always around the idea that work should be challenging and the
challenge should be fun. They are aware of their future as they know the future needs
and demands of their customer. They are highly focused to provide better and safe
internet environment. To retain in that position Google is continuous increasing its
volume of search in terms of quality and quantity.

(The 7 Ps of Marketing, By Brian Tracy, May 17, 2004.

Source: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/701284.html)

3.7. People

The final P of the marketing mix is people. It refers to develop the habit of thinking in
terms of the people inside and outside of the business. It is extremely hard to think
through every element of the marketing strategy and the marketing mix, and then pay
little attention to the fact that every single decision and policy has to be carried out by
a specific person, in a specific way.

Google puts users first when it comes to online services and puts employees first
when it comes to daily life in its offices. They are selecting, recruiting, hiring and

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retaining a good combination of different people from different backgrounds and

attracting and putting the right person into the right position. They provide a standard
package of fringe benefits, but on top of that are first-class dining facilities, gyms,
laundry rooms, massage rooms, haircuts, carwashes, dry cleaning, commuting buses;
just about anything a hardworking employee might want. “Let’s face it: programmers
want to program, they don’t want to do their laundry. So we make it easy for them to
do both.” Eric Schmidt, CEO Google.

They strive to be innovative and unique in all services they provide both to customers
and employees, including there benefits and perks offerings. They realize and
celebrate that their employees have diverse needs, and that this diversity requires
flexible and individually directed support. Their priority is to offer a customizable
program that can be tailored to the specific needs of each individual, whether they
enjoy ice climbing in Alaska, want to retire by age 40, or plan to adopt 3 children.

(Google Jobs and Benefits, Source: http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?

page=benefits.html)

4. Recommendations

The most common roles for all new graduates include:

 An up to date technology is a must for a company such like Google. They

must keep an open eye on the web based technology and knowledge.
 Google is currently letting spammers (electronic messaging systems) advertise
their blog spamming software via AdWord. Just Google for "blog burner"
(publishing tool from Google for easily sharing our thoughts with the world)
and the Rick with blog spamming software is being advertised through
Google's AdWord. I think it's about time Google makes its position clear on
where they stand when it comes to blog spam.
 Put a timed moratorium on newly created blogs. Make it so that newly
created blogs will not be indexed by search engines or show up on Next Blog
ring for the first 30 days or whatever the appropriate time may be. This will be
enough to identify and delete spam blogs before it sees the light of day and do

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anything to pollute the search indexes. Currently a spammer can create dozens
if not hundreds of blogs and they will just show up on Next Blog ring and get
indexed immediately.
 Google should continue to be innovative and try new things. They are
constantly using technology and bright minds to come up with useful tools for
everyday use and bring some more features in their search result to avoid the
bogus information and fraudulent activities in the search results.
 Its time for Google to introduce their own operating system to provide the best
platform for the best supports of all their products and services.
 A list of software is needed from Google to support their services and
products, Like; Media Player (just need wma/wmv, mp3, mpg, and avi) FTP
client (no need for SSL support), Torrent Client (downloading with Azureus
takes a lot of system resources).
 One area of Google where it's poorly done today is real estate, where most
real estate sites today remove listings once sold rather than pointing people to
related properties that are still on the market. Using search engines, a person
could run queries that generate relevant results as well. Try coming up with
comparative phrases that may be mentioned on product review sites or blogs
to generate appropriate search results.
 They have to advise their customers on how to get the best out of their
services by providing some help and support system on their web.

5. Conclusion

Google operates in IT sector, which becomes increasingly important as a key driver of

business competitiveness, increasing emphasis is placed upon the development of
skills such as relationship management, business process analysis and design, project
and program management, business change management, systems architecture,
networking, risk management and security.

Google is doing a great job of refining results to bring up stuff that we like. It should
be able to overcome even the most volatile market; tech stocks. Google must have

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an ongoing plan for marketing now that they have filed to become a public
corporation. All eyes will be on their every move now and they may have to modify
their marketing plan in order to satisfy their new customers, the shareholders.

Google has 31% of the online advertising market revenue, and 56% of the market
share for online searches. The company has nowhere to go but up, Google spends
20%-25% of its resources pursuing new ventures.

(Is Google too powerful? Posted by: Rob Hof on March 29, 2007. Source:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2007/03/is_google_too_p.html?
chan=search)

Google and Microsoft are currently both pursuing the acquisition of double-click,
which is the words best online ad agency. More likely Google has come out with its
own productivity software suite including word processors, spreadsheets, database
software, presentation software, instant messaging and video conference software to
compete with Microsoft in the corporate arena. Most of the software are free of
charge and other are very cheap in price.
It is constantly expanding its massive server farms and fiber-optic capacity. Google
may eventually be an alternative to the internet, by providing the same network that
runs faster.

Google is also currently working on Artificial Intelligence systems, an example of

that is its spell checking system, its language translator, and eventually a search
engine that almost knows what we are looking for as soon as we start looking for it.

They are also trying to create the first online ad marketplace, like an eBay for anyone
who wants to advertise. Google is also looking into revolutionizing television
commercials, so that television commercials can be custom-tailored for each
household, based on the ages and the people living in them, as well as their hobbies,
interests, likes, dislikes, and shopping habits.

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The world is much bigger than we thought so the Google still have some more areas
to improve. They should not stop their journey but take their products and services
keep going in the new dimensions. The new creative features Google will produce and
offer to the public will prove to play an important role in their long lasting success.

Bibliography

Books

Marketing Insights from A to Z: 80 Concepts Every Manager Needs to Know

By Philip Kotler
Published by John Wiley and Sons, 2003
ISBN 0471268674, 9780471268673
Page 108, 109 and 110

FROM MARKETING MIX TO RELATIONSHIP MARKETING

By: Gronroos Christian,
Management Decision, 00251747, 1997, Vol. 35, Issue 3/4
Source: Business Source Elite

Marketing
By David Steuart Mercer
Edition: 2, illustrated, revised
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 1996
ISBN 0631196382, 9780631196389
Page 29, 30 and 31

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Articles

Marketing and the 4P's

May 07, 2007
By Andrew Gettler
Source:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/233129/marketing_and_the_4ps_product_p
rice_pg2.html?cat=35

The 7 Ps of Marketing
May 17, 2004
By Brian Tracy
Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/article70824.html

Worry about your margins (or not)

December 3rd, 2007
By Joe
Source: http://www.pondermarketing.com/category/4ps-price

Is Google too powerful?

March 29, 2007
By: Rob Hof
Source:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2007/03/is_google_too_p
.html?chan=search

Web sources

http://learnmarketing.net/Place.htm
http://www.cim.co.uk/mediastore/FactFiles/Factifile7ps.pdf
http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=benefits.html
http://mms-notes.blogspot.com/2008/12/marketing-mix-4ps.html
http://www.google.co.uk/corporate/tech.html

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